Facilities: Stadium & Arena

In some circles, outrage accompanied the 2001 opening of Miller Park, the Milwaukee Brewers' new home. The state senator who cast the deciding vote in favor of a sales-tax increase to pay the public's $290 million portion of the construction cost had been recalled in a public referendum, and three workers had died after a crane collapsed, delaying the stadium's scheduled opening by a year. The stadium's fan-shaped retractable roof proved problematic, necessitating a $13 million fix paid for by a settlement reached between the Miller Park Stadium District and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of America, averting further litigation. That one signature element was a prime culprit in the stadium's ultimate $400 million construction cost, at the time the second-highest price tag for a new professional baseball stadium.

With the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in the news - the Minnesota House and Senate passed a $975 million plan for a new fixed-roof stadium Thursday, which now awaits Gov. Mark Dayton's signature - TIME magazine on Wednesday posted its list of the country's 10 worst venues in all of professional sports. The list is bound to rile fans (especially those in California, a state whose facilities hold down four of the 10 spots). No big surprise that the Metrodome tops the list.

Major League Baseball's Marlins have a new name (Miami, not Florida), a new look and new cheerleaders. The team went out and acquired new talent in the off-season. But all that pales in comparison to its new home, Marlins Park, which has seen more scrutiny than all of the above in the long lead-up to its official debut tonight, when Miami hosts the defending world champion St. Louis Cardinals.

Designers of MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., faced a complex challenge in creating a facility that serves two masters and needs to fully change, potentially in a matter of hours, to an exciting fan atmosphere for followers of the Jets and Giants. AB's panel of judges decided that the design team succeeded ably, with one judge remarking that the ambitious project both provides the needed flexibility and "presents a bold and dynamic expression" that nonetheless utilizes an exterior skin of aluminum louvers that "transform a large and complex facility into a light and contemporary form."

One can only imagine the emotional swing of a six-year-old — from the euphoria of tracking the arc of a baseball tossed in his direction by his favorite big-league player to the shock of looking down upon his bloodied father, who had just fallen 20 feet in an attempt to secure the souvenir. The image of the boy standing with one bare hand holding the railing that had failed to contain his dad, the other wearing the baseball glove purchased earlier that day, is as heartbreaking as any you're ever likely to see on a sports page.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials arrived at Kansas State University in Manhattan on Tuesday, one day after a 26-year-old masonry worker fell to his death from scaffolding at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.